It Must Be Love # 2

    Just now I began hearing the screams of a child I thought was having a tantrum downstairs. Then I heard the father shouting at it. The child kept screaming. It sounded about six-years-old. All of a sudden the father bellowed, "Shut yer fuckin' mouf!" The child kept screaming. And then the mother's voice began to wail also - a high pitched, desperate noise. There followed an indistinguishable background rumble of the father's anger. Something was smashed. I went to the window. The battle was taking place in the flats across from mine. The child's voice had now risen to an even higher level of hysteria. The father was yelling, out of control. And then, an ominous sudden silence. A few minutes later the mother began screaming. Something else smashed. The child's wordless, screaming voice sounded like a young trapped animal. It was a horrible sound that I hope never to hear again in my life. The mother yelled, "Give me my keys! I want my keys! I want to go out! Let me out! Let me out!" The father boomed a reply which I couldn't discern. The mother wailed. A police car pulled up. Two officers got out and went up the stairs. After a moment there was silence. Until the next time.

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